[Another means of keeping poor people of color from having a voice in democracy is to disenfranchise them without seeming to do so. See also: Wisconsin’s Voter-ID Law Could Block 300,000 Registered Voters From the Polls. *RON*]
By Alice Ollstein, Think Progress, 2 April 2016
MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN — A few days before millions of Wisconsin voters head to the polls to vote in the Republican and Democratic primaries, Ernest Barksdale and Nefertiti Helem struggled up the steps of Milwaukee’s downtown DMV in the pouring rain, hoping to obtain IDs that comply with the state’s voter ID law.

Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled overhead as Helem, leaning on a cane and clutching Barksdale’s arm, entered the office soaking wet and panting. She is battling a genetic degenerative disease that makes walking more painful each year, but said she didn’t want it to stop her from participating in the election.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been working on an investigative series about police abuse in South Carolina. I’ve found a dizzying number of cases, including illegal arrests, botched raids, fatal shootings and serious questions about how all those incidents are in…

A newly released study of fracking in a small Wyoming town has found that common practices in the industry may have widespread impacts on drinking water – a conclusion in direct conflict to U.S. EPA and Yale University reports last year that no such evidence exists.

[I've posted many stories here showing how loathsome an international reputation Canadian mining companies have. Those appeared here under the Harper government, but Trudeau shows few signs of being a reformer where business interests are concerned. However, the last bill that proposed putting legal and ethical controls on Canadian government grants for mining companies (defeated by Harper) was put forward by John McKay, Liberal, so we'll see. *RON*]

LOTE OCHO, Guatemala — Her husband was away in the fields, she said, when the truckloads of soldiers, police officers and mining security officials arrived. A half-dozen armed men swarmed into her one-room house, blocking her exit and helping themselves to the meal she had made for her children.

Lucien Libert & Morade Azzouz, Reuters / Globe & Mail, 31 March 2016
Hundreds of thousands of workers and high-school students joined protest marches across France on Wednesday to challenge plans to loosen the country’s protective labour laws that unions say favour businesses. The day of protest – which led to scores of arrests as youths and police clashed in Paris, Lyon and Nantes – marked the fourth such test of strength in a month for President Francois Hollande.Police, workers and students clash again in Paris (Reuters)

He has been plagued by low popularity and a jobless rate that is stuck stubbornly above 10 per cent little more than a year before a presidential election.

Organisers said more than 1.2 million people took part. The interior ministry put the number at just under 400,000, higher numbers – despite persistent rain – than in some other recent protests.

One of the recurring concerns involving Europe's seemingly perpetual economic, financial and social crises, is that these have been largely predetermined, "scripted" and deliberate acts.

This is something the former head of the Bank of England admitted one month ago when Mervyn King said that Europe's economic depression "is the result of "deliberate" policy choices made by EU elites. It is also what AIG Banque strategist Bernard Connolly said back in 2008 when laying out "What Europe Wants"

To use global issues as excuses to extend its power:environmental issues: increase control over member countries; advance idea of global governanceterrorism: use excuse for greater control over police and judicial issues; increase extent of surveillanceglobal financial crisis: kill two birds (free market; Ang…